What to do with red electrical cable?

Question

I have four electrical cables red, white, black and green but my lamp has only three: green, black and white. What do I do with red?

Answer 1

I'm not sure what you are doing. If it's to do with house wiring beware because you could invalidate your house insurance unless the work is inspected (and some jurisdictions don't allow anyone but licensed electricians to do the work).

That said, it sounds like you have 3 conductor (plus ground) wire suitable for split plugs (i.e. in a kitchen) or 3-way wiring of light switches. For example, the red and white can carry power to one half of a outlet and the black and white to the other half (The white is actually the neutral and is wired in common to the two circuits). This type of wiring allows two separate  circuits to be run back to the main panel on a single (3 conductor + ground) wire.

If this is just a piece of wire (not connected to power), it isn't the right stuff, but  you can use it to connect your lamp ... use the black, white and green (ground) and ignore the red. HOWEVER, if the wire is connected to power get an electrician.

Hope this helps.